(FOX 9) – As more hospital ICU beds are filled in the subway, it has an incredible effect on patient care in rural hospitals.
Rural health personnel say efforts are being made to get patients to receive critical care the help they need quickly enough because resources are not there.
The shortage of UCI beds, the staff has an undulating effect from Twin Cities to rural Minnesota
The shortage of beds and ICU medical staff is creating an undulating effect from the twin cities to rural Minnesota.
“Rural hospitals are designed for primary care and general surgery. They are not designed for ICU care,” said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association.
Morgan said there is one thing rural hospitals have in common across the country: the ability to move patients to larger city hospitals.
He says rural hospitals have always lagged behind in adequate resources, such as beds and staff, but the recent increase in Delta variant patients makes things worse.
An internal medicine doctor (who asked him to hide his identity for patient confidentiality) said rural hospital staff requesting beds are denied.
“We have this thing called C4 in Minnesota: a system for trying to get critical care beds in these rural places in an organized way, and last night they stopped getting calls because they were so full. They didn’t have beds.” said the doctor.
For other ICU doctors in the state, not reaching patients on time has been devastating.
“The hardest thing is to know that there are patients we can help with and who are waiting in the emergency department in small hospitals and can’t get the care they need in the ICU,” said Dr. Christina Bastin de Jong, who works inside the Essentia Health ICU in St. Mary’s a Duluth.
The National Rural Health Association says the next big boost is to hire more staff and encourage more people in rural communities to get vaccinated.
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